“Believe me, doc, it’s crystal clear that lying is a bad idea.”
Strauze chuckled and said, “If I had a nickel for every time a decent-looking citizen said so, and then got his brain cooked because he swore he wasn’t cheating on his wife…well, I’d have a couple nickels.”
It was a joke told by someone who didn’t understand the concept of humor. Or perhaps Strauze enjoyed seeing the fear in the eyes of his underlings.
Delagarza didn’t laugh. Instead, he waited for the loyalty test.
“Remember, you have nothing to fear if you’ve nothing to hide, citizen,” Strauze said. It was an old earther proverb.
“Are you cheating on your wife, Delagarza?” Strauze asked.
Delagarza blinked. Maybe the Major did understand humor. “I don’t have a wife.”
“Good answer. This is merely a warm-up,” he explained, “so you relax a bit. Have you cheated on anyone?”
“Romantically, or in general?”
“Yes,” said Strauze.
“Yes,” said Delagarza, not one second later.
Both men straightened their backs, like two bulls circling each other, horns raised, as they both realized neither was willing to play nice.
Strauze’s next questions came like spewed from a machine gun, one after the other.
“Any vices? You’ a whoring man?”
“Smoking. Tried a couple lollipops a while back. Not my thing.”
“You love your momma?”
“To be honest, I don’t think about my mother a lot.”
“Why?”
Delagarza shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. He wondered what Strauze was playing at. The loyalty test was supposed to weed out terrorists and the EIF, not talk about the subject’s personal life.
“You know what Newgen is?” asked Strauze.
“A corp?” asked Delagarza, shrugging again.
“Anything else?”
“Don’t think so. They sound like a bank.”
“They’re not a bank.”
Delagarza shrugged.
“What’s the last time you got laid?”
“How’s that relevant to the loyalty test?”
“Your heart rate spiked a bit,” Doctor Kircher warned Delagarza.
Strauze raked his fingers on his knee, the vivid image of a bartender making chitchat during slow hour. “Just curious. Indulge me,” he said.
Delagarza passed a hand over his recently shaved chin. “A month and a half.”
“With whom?”
“Sailor on leave. It was a one night deal.”
“What’s their gender?”
“None of your business.”
That remark made Kircher look away from her screen. “Relax, Sam. You’re on edge.”
Strauze smirked, like she had said a pun.
“Done anything you regret, lately?” he asked.
“Yes,” Delagarza said.
“What?”
“This conversation.”
“Why; anything to hide?”
“Lots. No one warned me we’d talk about my personal life.”
Delagarza didn’t know what about Strauze made him so jumpy. Was it the major’s overwhelming size difference? Maybe it was a macho thing, like Charleton had said last night.
Whatever it was, Strauze’s shark-like smirk gave Delagarza the urge to resist the interrogation as hard as he could. He wanted to give the Enforcer nothing because it felt like the Enforcer enjoyed taking from him.
You’re playing with your life because you don’t like the cut of his jib, a sensible part of him warned.
“A private man,” said Strauze, “very well. Have you done anything illegal? Ever committed a crime?”
Doctor Kircher butted in. “Careful, Sam, the memory of shoplifting at three years old may trigger the bots.”
“If I ever committed a crime, it was so minor I don’t remember it,” said Delagarza.
Strauze paused for breath. Delagarza realized Doctor Kircher had been following the exchange between them like it was a sport match. Perhaps betting when he’d slip up and get his brain fried.
“What do you think of me?” asked Strauze, casual-like, just a man talking about the weather.
“You seem like a prim and proper gentleman,” said Delagarza.
Kircher and Strauze seemed confused, but the major didn’t prod any further.
“You’re quite good at this,” said Strauze. “Have you practiced beforehand?”
“No, not really.”
“Are you an agent, Delagarza?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Are you an agent?” repeated Strauze, shoving his face a centimeter into Delagarza’s personal space. There was no change in the man’s face, but Delagarza’s instincts screamed at him that there was danger in the question.
“As in, a travel agent? No, I’m not. Are you sure you’re interviewing the right guy?”
Strauze’s eyelids narrowed. “Don’t play smart with me. I’m talking agents. Monk-like gland control, to the point idiots think its magic. Expert killers trained in most combat scenarios. Spies, assassins, infiltrators. Enemies of the Systems Alliance and its citizens, used and trained by rogue corporations when they want to break the law, but don’t want anyone to know. Agents, Delagarza, agents.”
“Are you making fun of me?” asked Delagarza. Irritation rose in his veins, followed by the impulse to just get up and walk out. Instead, he recalled he was supposed to remain calm (despite Strauze’s best efforts), so he took a deep breath, and said, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a ‘ware cracker, not a space ninja, or whatever.”
The major relaxed his shoulders and reclined away from Delagarza, who took a deep breath of clean recycled air, not marred by the enforcer’s exhalations.
“Good to know. What do you think of the Edge Independence Front, Delagarza?”
Here we go. The wrong answer would get Delagarza jailed or executed. He followed Kircher advice and took a second to compose himself.
At least the real loyalty test had begun. It made him relax, too, because he could guess what to expect. He was at risk, but it beat talking about his sex life.
“Misguided idealists,” he said, “some of them well-meaning. The others, the ones who go around raiding convoys and cycling contractors out of airlocks…those are pirates, clean and simple.”
“One could say the idealists are just as guilty as the pirates,” Strauze pointed out, “because they allow the raiding to continue.”
Delagarza shrugged, “Maybe. Whatever. As long as they stay in their lane and don’t spill over into mine.”
The Backwater Worlds had a massive loyalist population, true, but Outlander and Dione weren’t technically in the Backwater Worlds. They were a hub of unsanctioned trade, surviving on private trade for their sustenance. Most people were too busy here trying not to freeze to death to care about who got to rule over the Edge.
Jagal, Earth, a Backwater corporation. It all amounted to the same if you lived far enough from all of them.
“What about the Alliance?” Strauze went on.
“Not much to say,” said Delagarza, “I don’t think about the SA a lot. The Edge doesn’t seem to be burning, so I guess they’re doing something right.”
“I see. What about Tal-Kader Conglomerate? There’s this conspiracy theory that they murdered Isaac Reiner and his family. You buy into it?”
Delagarza laughed, then coughed. Doctor Kircher reminded him to stop smoking in a whisper, but he ignored her. Strauze waited for his answer.
“Sorry, but if you’re going to arrest me for answering that, good luck with finding a replacement to crack your ‘ware. Everyone in the Edge knows Tal-Kader killed the Reiners. There’s not a pirate corporation with the firepower to assault the SA flagship in deep space and actually win. There isn’t one today, and there wasn’t one fifty years ago. Only Tal-Kader and its cronies can bring down a battleship, because they have battleships of their own.”